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Bill Clinton’s speech
By Will Sunday, last week, 3 Comments »
Say what you like about American politics, but you cannot deny the sheer entertainment value, or its ability to engage with the public. The campaign in the USA has been enthralling for all the usual reasons, and the speeches often spine-tinglingly sycophantic. But to watch Bill Clinton address the Democratic National Convention in Denver was to witness one of the modern masters of oratory. Watch the video. It’s about 25 minutes and quite brilliant in its use of rhetoric, facial expressions, and in whipping up the crowd at just the right moments.
I’ve always hated the quasi-religious feel to American politics. Watching Joe Public burst into tears at the sight of his favourite democratic candidate is distinctly un-British. Yet the interest surrounding this campaign has been astonishing, even taking into account the false sense of drama, of celebrity, noise, money and colour which often characterises politics in the States.
And yet, can you imagine David Cameron or Gordon Brown whipping the cynical British public into such a frenzy, instilling their vision into our minds? No, nor me. For once, I’m a little jealous of America. I love all the tradition of our politics (apart from the unelected Lords, who should all be put in a home), but how can Cameron and co engage with our public with the same infectious spirit of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton?
3 Comments »Barack Obama: the couscous candidate
By Will 8 months ago, 1 Comment »
As may or may not be apparent, I’m a big fan of political satire, and indeed comedy as a whole. Most writers think they possess acerbic wit and the ability to satirise our lives and politicians, but few cut the mustard. One of the very best, in this country and most others, is Armando Iannucci who has written, produced, directed and featured in some of Britain’s best comedies in the past 20 years. Anything he writes is must-read, and here is his take on Barack Obama:
But, rhythmically, it’s quite alluring. It can make anything, even, for example, a simple chair, seem magnificent. Why vote for someone who says: ‘See that chair. You can sit on it’ when you can have someone like Obama say: ‘This chair can take your weight. This chair can hold your buttocks, 15 inches in the air. This chair, this wooden chair, can support the ass of the white man or the crack of the black man, take the downward pressure of a Jewish girl’s behind or the butt of a Buddhist adolescent, it can provide comfort for Muslim buns or Mormon backsides, the withered rump of an unemployed man in Nevada struggling to get his kids through high school and needful of a place to sit and think, the plump can of a single mum in Florida desperately struggling to make ends meet but who can no longer face standing, this chair, made from wood felled from the tallest redwood in Chicago, this chair, if only we believed in it, could sustain America’s huddled arse.’
Superb. Read it here.
1 Comment »